Fox: Brexit delays would be betrayal of the people

EXTENDING Brexit talks beyond March would be a ‘complete betrayal’ of the referendum, Liam Fox warned yesterday.

In a blunt intervention, the International Trade Secretary hinted he could quit the Cabinet if there is any attempt to delay Britain’s exit from the EU.

Dr Fox, a lifelong Eurosceptic who has remained loyal to Theresa May in the wake of the Chequers deal, said voters were already exasperated by the length of time Brexit was taking.

He said the UK should ‘leave without a deal’ rather than seek an extension of the Article 50 process if talks remain deadlocked in March next year.

‘The public have told us – it wasn’t a consultation – to leave the European Union, and the public already wonders why it’s going to take more than four years after the referendum for us to fully remove ourselves from the EU,’ he told Business Insider.

‘To attempt to extend our membership even longer, many voters would regard as a complete betrayal by the political class, and I think they would be right.’ The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier torpedoed a key plank of the Chequers deal on Thursday when he said Brussels ‘cannot and will not’ accept the proposed plan for dealing with customs controls, which would see the UK collecting EU tariffs.

Dr Fox yesterday accused the EU of pushing Britain towards a no-deal scenario, saying that ‘if [the EU] keep saying no to everything they will end up with no deal’. His intervention came amid rising Tory concern about the impact of the Chequers row on public confidence in the Government.

The controversial deal, which includes signing up to a ‘common rule book’ with the EU on goods and farm products, led to the resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis. An Ipsos Mori poll for the Evening Standard last night found that the proportion of voters satisfied with Mrs May’s performance has fallen from 35 per cent to 30 in the wake of the deal. Satisfaction among Tory voters fell more sharply from 68 per cent to 55. Overall, Mrs May now has a net satisfaction rating of -32, down from -23 before the Chequers deal was agreed. The PM yesterday embarked on a fresh round of talks to try to sell her Chequers deal to the EU, holding talks with the Austrian and Czech leaders in Salzburg. Speaking ahead of talks with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Mrs May said the two sides had ‘many shared challenges and opportunities to discuss’. Mr Kurz, who also holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said Brexit was viewed ‘very negatively’, but added: ‘The decision has been taken by the British people. From our point of view, it is important to avoid a hard Brexit.’ But earlier, Mrs May was warned that she will struggle to find ‘loopholes’ in the EU’s approach to Brexit talks. Both the Austrian and Czech governments have been critical of aspects of EU policy and ministers are hoping to use internal divisions within the bloc to push for a more flexible approach from Brussels to Brexit negotiations. But Czech state secretary for European affairs Ales Chmelar insisted: ‘The fact that we are maybe critical of some aspects of EU policies, be it in migration or be it in other areas, does not mean that we wouldn’t stand behind a very strong position on the integrity of the single market.’

‘The public have told us to leave the EU’